This is not a new question – it comes up again and again in the SUP industry. Especially when things are not going so well economically, the industry asks itself the self-critical question: “Are we actually producing for the right people?”
If anyone can give an honest answer to this question, it’s Jens von Gersdorff from the Get Up Stand Up Shop in Kappeln. Hardly anyone is as passionate about the sport as he is. Jens has been part of the German SUP community for many years and actively promotes the sport.
In a much-noticed video, he denounces the state of the industry – or rather: the fact that much of it now revolves around racing and SUP wave disciplines, while the average paddler is increasingly being forgotten.
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A justified point
Jens raises a point here that we at Stand Up Magazine also need to think about. Over the past few years, as in many areas of the scene, a certain operational blindness has crept in.
We follow with enthusiasm what is happening in the racing scene, report with fascination on downwind SUP foiling and are at the forefront when it comes to parawing developments. But these are all niche sports that only a few people have really mastered – or have any ambition to do so.
Learn from windsurfing
When we came to SUP around 15 years ago, we hardly knew anything about windsurfing. It quickly became clear that the same players were involved as later in SUP.
And that’s where a parallel emerges: windsurfing died out because it became too complicated for normal people.
The development has always been similar:
A sport starts out broad and accessible, many people join in. Then the protagonists want to push the boundaries, test equipment and themselves, push performance further and further – until at some point the equipment and conditions are only suitable for professionals.
In windsurfing, this resulted in sinkerboards, extreme speeds and competitions in conditions that were simply too intense for amateur windsurfers. The sport suddenly became all about the top athletes in Ho’okipa, the perfect waves and the image of the extreme. The rest? No longer cool enough.
Nevertheless, Robby Naish became a superstar. Many Germans followed that dream and emigrated to the Canary Islands or Hawaii – where the big waves were waiting. But the sport itself shrank, sales halved and the industry lost contact with normal customers.
SUP, wing and foil in the age of social media
We are at a similar point today. In the age of social media, almost all content is created from the perspective of those who practice the sport at the limit.
In SUP, around 90% of the content comes from racers. Wingfoiling is booming, driven by contests and events. Pump foiling is also growing thanks to committed protagonists and organizations such as the SFT, which is dedicated exclusively to this topic.
The media focus on world championships and racing series. As small as these areas are, they generate the content and the content keeps the sport alive and going.
We all watch in fascination as SUP athletes battle for hundredths of a second, Kai Lenny foils across the open sea at 40 km/h or Maui super talent Cash Berzolla performs spectacular wingfoil maneuvers. But these are exceptional athletes. Most people just watch – and some say to themselves: “That’s not for me.” This is precisely the problem that Jens is addressing.
His customers are hardly interested in racing. Fewer people today – especially younger people – dream of big waves and golden sandy beaches and ask themselves: “Could I do that too?”
Building bridges
So the key question is: how do we bring the world of professionals and the world of normal people back together?
A look at our YouTube channel shows that our foiling videos appeal to an audience of 40 to 60-year-old male amateur athletes – people who can afford the equipment. We also make our videos from this perspective. Young riders are usually sponsored or supported by their parents.
A few years ago, the foil industry recognized this potential for a short time and ran ads with athletes over 40.
The SUP racing scene today consists mainly of over-40 athletes and is getting older all the time. In wingfoiling, too, it is often former windsurfers who want to give it another go. Many already feel too old for pump foiling, and parawing is often just something to watch.
But SUP and wingfoil are perfect for the 50+ generation who want to have at it again. These are precisely the people the industry should be advertising to and with.
New stories instead of old records
We need stories that inspire – not just clips of athletes who, as Jens aptly puts it, “nail it like sewing machines and rush 200 meters down the harbor”.
We want SUP tours, travel stories, discoveries of new spots – told by normal people like you and me.
The problem is that these people are not content creators. They rarely share their experiences on social media and even less often with magazines. The industry doesn’t know them – and can therefore hardly use their content.
But this is precisely where a huge opportunity lies: high-performance material can inspire if you show how much fun it can be in everyday use. The industry needs to find these stories and bring them to the “low-performance” target group.
Conclusion:
If the SUP sport is to continue to grow, we need to make it appealing to normal people again. For those who paddle because they love nature, exercise and community – not because they want to become world champions.
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